May 31, 2011

Throughout the month of May, Science Careers published a feature series exploring academic careers in healthy aging research. We profiled several researchers studying how to help people age successfully and independently, from the perspective of genetics, sociology and psychology, engineering, and neurology. If you’re an early-caree… Read More

May 29, 2011

ScienceInsider reports that a panel has recommended that the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) scrap its current “glue grant” program, which has invested $368 million to facilitate large collaborations since it started in 2000, about 1.8% of the NIGMS budget. “So what went awry?” asks ScienceInside… Read More

May 27, 2011

Research Councils UK (RCUK) have just released a video showing how the public can benefit from interacting with researchers, and how researchers can benefit from engaging with the public. The 7-minute movie includes interviews with researchers and members of the public during a public debate about future energy scenarios held as part of… Read More

May 26, 2011

I was a teenager when I had my first frustrating post-interview interaction. I had interviewed for a summer job at a company that described itself as an “engineering firm.” That description can mean many things, but this was the kind of engineering firm that mainly does land surveys for road construction and real-estate transactions. I… Read More

May 25, 2011

John Travis, an editor in Science’s news department, alerted me to an interview with Marcia McNutt, geophysicist and currently head of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), on the Washington Post employment blog The Federal Coach. McNutt has been a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Stanford University, and she has served… Read More

May 24, 2011

A debate has lately been brewing in educational circles about whether a college or graduate education is really worth the price, given the ever-rising cost of tuition. If those loans and savings are bankrolling college degrees in science and, especially, in engineering, the answer is decidedly yes. That’s according to a fascinatin… Read More

May 22, 2011

Matthew Stremlau, a postdoc at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., also has experience doing research in China, at the National Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology and Peking University. Writing on the op-ed page of the Washington Post, he advises fellow young scientists unable to achieve academic science careers in the Unite… Read More

May 20, 2011

Inside Higher Ed blogs that an exposé of ethical infractions by medical faculty that was published by ProPublica has prodded medical schools to tighten their enforcement of conflict-of-interest rules. Stanford University, for example, has disciplined 5 faculty members who, despite university policies to the contrary, took money from drug companies… Read More

With the academic job market in United States overcrowded, and this year’s American hiring season nearing its end, the aptly named Katrina Gulliver suggests that aspirants to faculty positions can expand their pool of opportunities by seeking openings in other countries. Gulliver, who has held posts in Europe, Asia, and Australia, has n… Read More

May 19, 2011

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is making it possible for more foreign students to extend their visas and stay in the United States for “optional practical training.” By doing so, it is also giving companies an economic reason to hire them in place of comparable Americans, says David North of the Center for Immigration… Read More